#hes not going to write in a Shoujo style- ‘appeal to women’ because it would go against what the show is

[sugirandom]

365 days of writing: day 322 and 323

Day 322 and 323: hedgehogs

   Yesterday morning I had to go to training at the English school and they wanted me to cover classes. The first class didn’t go so well... I didn’t have all the papers and had to leave the head teacher to improvise the class while I went across the hall to the main room and grabbed the papers I forgot. I also just had trouble moving the class forward in general because I’m not really familiar with the curriculum yet but the head teacher was merciful on me. I’m so used to my boss from two years ago that I was mentally prepared for him to scold me but he just calmly told me that I had to be more prepared without any of the guilting techniques my former boss would have used. The second class went a little better but not great though the other teacher just gave me suggestions of what to do and I made it through the class. At least with the third class half of it was done by their normal teacher but it was hard to run around and sing with the little kids while I still had a cough. I was allowed to leave early since I told them I had an appointment to get to and I grabbed a late lunch afterwards before heading back to Keage station. My appointment was with an expert on visas and I was just basically trying to figure out what kind of options I have if by February I’m still tired of this school or feel like they might actually make me repeat the same material next semester and I decide to get my 50% refund (no full refunds sadly) and hightail it out of that school, I have to stay in Japan for a year though since my apartment contract is final and I’m not allowed to cancel early so that’s why I was looking into other options. I can discuss that more later...like closer to when a decision is actually made.

Anyway, after my appointment I headed to Sanjo and got a foot massage and some dinner before heading home. This morning I skyped with mom before I headed out. While I was waiting for the subway I saw two fellow foreigners who looked like they were having trouble figuring out where they needed to be so I asked them where they were headed and it happened to be on the same train line I was waiting for, I explained to them which line goes in which direction and they were very grateful. The woman talked to me about how nice everyone’s been to them while we were riding the train. I got off near Kyoto city hall and had some lunch at the Tonkatsu place I like in the station mall. I originally was going to look for Nishiki market but instead I ended up wandering around Teramachi and looking at their various shops. I happened to stumble upon a hedgehog cafe which was a big surprise. I was pretty sure that hedgehog cafes were only in the Tokyo area since well actually that was something someone I spoke to online told me...they were wrong...

I only paid for 20 minutes because I know next to nothing about hedgehogs and how they are with people. One of the shopkeepers sat me down at a table in front of a small glass cage that was decorated with an exercise wheel and some toys. Inside was a small prickly ball of a sleeping hedgehog. The shopkeeper came back a second later with a pair of gloves and a small tub with a hedgehog inside. She gave me a piece of paper with rules to read and asked me not to pet the hedgehog and to pick it up from the bottom half of it’s body. When the hedgehog first saw me she curled up into a ball and her needles extended but after a while she seemed to calm down and started walking around the tub sniffing curiously. I paid a little extra so they would give me food to feed the hedgehog which in this case were tiny worms. I was given little tweezers to to feed the worms to the hedgehog and as soon as the worms were brought to the table the hedgehog’s little nose started twitching as she started searching eagerly for the worms. I felt a little weird doing it but I fed the three worms to the eager hedgehog and the poor girl was still hungry and eagerly looking up at me for more food. I quietly told her I didn’t have any more and had to keep a close eye on her because she looked like she was going to jump out. When my time was almost up the shopkeeper offered to take a picture of me holding the hedgehog before I got up to leave. As I was leaving the staff told me that the hedgehog they gave me to play with was named “Salt and Pepper. I looked at their other hedgehog names and while there is no hedgehog named Sonic they did have one named Silver so I couldn’t escape having fandom feels. I wandered around for a bit after that but my knee was starting to hurt form an incident earlier where I almost twisted my ankle while trying to avoid a bicycle rider who was approaching me on the way to the station. Basically my knee had to try to hold me up and it’s still not 100% better so it got aggravated.

    So anyway, I stopped at a cafe nearby and drank some melon soda while I took a Tylenol to ease the pain. I got the brochure to the gym I want to go to and was looking at their classes but sadly I can’t read the descriptions well. I also forgot to mention that I stumbled into two Anime and doujinshii shops in the area, To celebrate the upcoming release of the FMA liveaction movie they were selling special edition FMA manga volumes and for a really decent price but I talked myself out of getting any...perhaps I will buy at least one if they are still there next time. As for the second store I have a bit of a silly confession to make. I had seen this same store several years ago in Osaka. It’s a store called Melon books and while I knew even then that naturally that fruit is indeed slang for a certain female body part and this store did have comics with many females since I didn’t stumble upon any of the adult comics my brain did not make the connection. This time however I wandered right into the adult section without realizing it and I got to see why they call this bookstore melon books. I assure you that all the women in this store are animated but yeah I didn’t really stay long because as much as I don’t mind more adult comics I find a lot of the ones geared towards men aren’t the most tasteful or don’t really appeal to my personal tastes much.

Anyway, on to PG things again. I found a book in the children section of a different bookstore on my way home that had this cool-looking manga drawn in shoujo-style that had descriptions of various careers that seemed pretty easy-to-follow and had cute illustrations. This is probably geared towards young girls maybe between age 7-12 and I thought that was pretty neat. I got some groceries after that and headed home. The atmosphere was a little weird on the walk home since it was bright and sunny but it was also drizzling. There were a lot of fire trucks near the hill I walk up too so I wondered if there was some sort of accident nearby. When I got home I studied for my test tomorrow and then had some broccoli and shrimp stir-fry for dinner. The last thing I want to mention before I go is sad and also fan-related. Perhaps many Dragon Ball fans are already aware that about three days ago Hiromi Tsuru, the voice actress who portrayed Bulma from day one till this year was found dead in her car. I finally was able to read more news that suggested there was no foul play and that her death was related to heart-failure but it is very sad regardless considering she was still quite young, only 57. I’m not really sure if there’s any way I can tribute her but I do hope that she rests in peace. I’m sorry to end on such a sour note but I wasn’t sure where it would fit in my entry so I left it until the end.